# Gandalf always carries his pipe



## User Name (Feb 11, 2011)

Never saw this before, but Gandalf actually carries his pipe inside of his staff. It fits in a slot, right at the top. Just look at this pic...



The bowl of his pipe is the highest point of the staff, and the with the stem and shank being inserted into the staff so that the stem and staff are parallel. Then the stem kinda sticks out the side a little.

Screw a pipe bag, get yourself a magic pipe staff.


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## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

I never noticed that, and I just rewatched the movies last month. I loved the scene where Merry and Pippin discover the stash of Stonehaven at Isengard...


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## Rock31 (Sep 30, 2010)

This weekend may be good for a LOTR marathon 

Never noticed that either.


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## NoShhhSherlock (Mar 30, 2011)

Which scene was that from? He must have different staffs, I remember his staff in the first one having some type of stone, or crystal at the top. Never A pipe. But good catch.


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## owaindav (Mar 7, 2010)

Pretty good eye there bro! That's sweet!


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## Troutman22 (Feb 2, 2011)

HAH thats cool - didnt he get a new white staff after he fought the balrog? Been awhile since I seen those movies. IIRC when the two hobbits are smoking after the tower area flooded you can see tobak hanging out of their bowl. I thought that was odd - a shaggy pack I guess.


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## User Name (Feb 11, 2011)

Sherlockholms said:


> Which scene was that from? He must have different staffs, I remember his staff in the first one having some type of stone, or crystal at the top. Never A pipe. But good catch.


He inserts the crystal when they go into the mines. I guess in the same slot the pipe goes into.

But where can you find a place that sells magic staff inserts? :dunno:

McMaster-Carr?


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## Cpuless (Aug 8, 2009)

Nah, you can't get em at McMaster. Give Grainger a call, they had em last I checked.


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## shannensmall (Jun 30, 2010)

I never noticed that. Pretty neat lol


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## NoShhhSherlock (Mar 30, 2011)

User Name said:


> He inserts the crystal when they go into the mines. I guess in the same slot the pipe goes into.
> 
> But where can you find a place that sells magic staff inserts? :dunno:
> 
> McMaster-Carr?


I think I am thinking of the scene when he is walking in the garden with the white wizard, talking about gandalf finding the ring. I have not seen them in so long I am going to have to watch them again just to catch a peak at this staff.


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## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 6, 2011)

As a grey wizard he had the staff pictured, when he came back as a white wizard he had a staff made out of ivory that did not have a pipe in it.


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## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

Damn antis...


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## Xodar (Mar 4, 2011)

Nice pick up UN. I literally just rewatched these this past weekend after buying a cheap churchwarden from my B&M, and didn't pick up on it (although the movies are FULL of pipe smoking). Cheap churchwarden gurgles like a bong btw, but the movies were still great!


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## DSturg369 (Apr 6, 2008)

Gandalf to Balrog = "Hey buddy, got a light?"


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## Jessefive (Oct 21, 2009)

User Name said:


> Screw a pipe bag, get yourself a magic pipe staff.


Ha ha ha, that is amazing! I want one!


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## FlimFlammery (Feb 25, 2011)

DSturg369 said:


> Gandalf to Balrog = "Hey buddy, got a light?"


"I am a servant of the Secret Fire" is actually code for "I know where to score some Stonehaven".


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

User Name said:


> He inserts the crystal when they go into the mines. I guess in the same slot the pipe goes into.
> 
> But where can you find a place that sells magic staff inserts? :dunno:
> 
> McMaster-Carr?


SmokingStaffs.com, Jimmy. Pipesandamulets has a nice selection, too.

My, that is one great get there! So, are you related to Hercule Poirot or Adrian Monk by any chance?

Had to take out the pipe for the trip to the mines. Too dangerous, might have damaged the pipe.


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## Blue_2 (Jan 25, 2011)

Interesting, I never picked up on that either! It makes sense as a great place to store a churchwarden for someone who travels all the time.


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## Hellraiser (Mar 17, 2006)

Never noticed, will have to rewatch.


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## Zfog (Oct 16, 2010)

Nice eye, Exemplary details throughout the series!


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## ProbateGeek (Oct 13, 2010)

DirtyBlackSocks said:


> As a grey wizard he had the staff pictured, when he came back as a white wizard he had a _*staff made out of ivory*_ that did not have a pipe in it.


<_bump_>

Not ivory - meerschaum!

Now I need to rewatch these movies, especially for the pipe scenes. Funny that so many of us did not notice this -










I also need to see _Never Cry Wolf_ again - I recall that movie may have the best audio of a pipe being lit ever recorded.


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## Herf N Turf (Dec 31, 2008)

Well, that whole staff-as-pipe-caddy thing was one of many of Peter Jackson's points of "editorial license". If I recall the books correctly (only read them four times) Gandalf would retrieve his pipe from inside his cloak along with his pouch of pipeweed.

After growing up on those books, I went into the theater with a very surly attitude, expecting to revile the movies. I came out, after each one, amazed!

I'll never forget the Academy awards show the year after Return of the King. The presenter made a statement like, "Thank God LOTR is behind us! Someone else has a chance now." hahaha


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

Herf N Turf said:


> After growing up on those books, I went into the theater with a very surly attitude, expecting to revile the movies. I came out, after each one, amazed!


The movies were well done. I enjoyed them immensely! :tu I read these books in college, ~1962. Was almost evangelical about them. :lol:

The better books, to which the Tolkien series has been compared, is The Gormenghast Trilogy. The story's no better, for sure, but the WRITING is simply amazing. Dense, Dickensian writing. No movie could do Gormenghast justice, for sure, since it's the verbal, descriptive element that makes that series so powerful:
*
Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping earth, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.*

Movies can't do that.


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## Herf N Turf (Dec 31, 2008)

freestoke said:


> Movies can't do that.


You make a provocative point, Jim, but that's precisely what I said for thirty years about LOTR. Right up until I walked out of The Fellowship of the Ring!

There is no question that the LOTR movies are but a pale analogue of the books; a mere cinematic simile, but at the end of the day, they are both compelling and tremendously entertaining.

With a great story like Gormenghast, the potential for the same certainly exists.


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## Xodar (Mar 4, 2011)

Herf N Turf said:


> You make a provocative point, Jim, but that's precisely what I said for thirty years about LOTR. Right up until I walked out of The Fellowship of the Ring!
> 
> There is no question that the LOTR movies are but a pale analogue of the books; a mere cinematic simile, but at the end of the day, they are both compelling and tremendously entertaining.
> 
> With a great story like Gormenghast, the potential for the same certainly exists.


Great points. I suspect most of us fans remember the semi-animated attempts of the late 70's and early 80's, and while the Hobbit still has a sentimental place for me (digital versions of "Crack the plates" ftw) those made me think back then that they would never be able to translate those stories to my satisfaction. I had a similar experience to Mr. Moo, Jackson did a pretty amazing job of translating the stories to reality. I can nit pick some of the sacrifices (ala Bjorn and Tom Bombadil) but overall what an achievement. McKellan as Gandalf is the example I cite when showing how every once in a while a movie tranlation exactly matches my mental image.

As a poor example... X men movies anyone? I quit watching them in the theatre, as me shouting "That's not right!" eventually annoyed the other movie-goers... Stand alone action movies, they'r great, and Origins was watchable, but they generally prison violated the mythos of my generation right off in the first movie, there are so many plot holes and inconsistencies it irritates me just thinking about them.


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## indigosmoke (Sep 1, 2009)

I love both the LOTR books and movies. I must have read the books at least 10 times, as well as most of Tolkien's other writings and his letters and biography, so naturally there are points in the movie that aren't my cup of tea. 

However, many of the scenes in the movie just seem to spring to life from the pages of the books for me...Aragon finding Pippin's broach (what can I say..."Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall," is one of my favorite lines in the books)...Gandalf confronting the Balrog...The death of Boromir...Aragorn rising from the fields of Rohan and calling out to the Riders...Eowyn confronting the Witchking (actually, just about all the scenes with Eowyn as I think Miranda Otto is excellent)...Frodo and Sam at the Cracks of Doom...just about all the scenes with Gollum...and many, many others.

And while I don't agree with all the changes made in the movies (Boromir's blond hair, although I thought Sean Bean made an excellent Boromir in all other respects, the dwarf tossing business, Legolas snow boarding on a shield at Helm's Deep, Frodo turning on Sam during the ascent at Minas Morgul, etc) there are some scenes added to the movie that I thought were quite powerful and actually worked well, such as the scene with Pippin singing as Faramir leads the doomed attack on Osgiliath. That scene gets to me no matter how many times I watch it.

All in all, I think Peter Jackson made a very solid film from a beloved book.


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## Herf N Turf (Dec 31, 2008)

Xodar said:


> Great points. I suspect most of us fans remember the semi-animated attempts of the late 70's and early 80's, and while the Hobbit still has a sentimental place for me (digital versions of "Crack the plates" ftw) those made me think back then that they would never be able to translate those stories to my satisfaction. I had a similar experience to Mr. Moo, Jackson did a pretty amazing job of translating the stories to reality. I can nit pick some of the sacrifices (ala Bjorn and Tom Bombadil) but overall what an achievement. McKellan as Gandalf is the example I cite when showing how every once in a while a movie tranlation exactly matches my mental image.
> 
> As a poor example... X men movies anyone? I quit watching them in the theatre, as me shouting "That's not right!" eventually annoyed the other movie-goers... Stand alone action movies, they'r great, and Origins was watchable, but they generally prison violated the mythos of my generation right off in the first movie, there are so many plot holes and inconsistencies it irritates me just thinking about them.


I figured out a long time ago that going to a movie and expecting anything other than a VERY loose interpretation of a book was a set-up for disappointment. I tend to try my hardest to take a movie at face value and understand that no writer or director can condense a thousand pages of detail into a 90min feature.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails utterly. In the case of Jackson, it just happened to work.



indigosmoke said:


> I love both the LOTR books and movies.* I must have read the books at least 10 times*, as well as most of Tolkien's other writings and his letters and biography, so naturally there are points in the movie that aren't my cup of tea.
> 
> However, many of the scenes in the movie just seem to spring to life from the pages of the books for me...Aragon finding Pippin's broach (what can I say..."Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall," is one of my favorite lines in the books)...Gandalf confronting the Balrog...The death of Boromir...Aragorn rising from the fields of Rohan and calling out to the Riders...Eowyn confronting the Witchking (actually, just about all the scenes with Eowyn as I think Miranda Otto is excellent)...Frodo and Sam at the Cracks of Doom...just about all the scenes with Gollum...and many, many others.
> 
> ...


Haha! Okay John, I've read them a lot more than four times as I stated. I just didn't want to come off as that big of a Tolkein nerd... but I AM!

There's no doubt that Gollum was the most difficult character to portray and develop. The academy award for both the actor and animators was well deserved.

A testament to the greatness of these films is that we're STILL talking about them like they were just released.


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